Banana, chocolate chip and walnut layer cake

Apologies for the brief absence as I've been away on holiday and am just about catching up with everything. I baked this last month but didn't get a chance to blog about it. I love baking with bananas and I'm always looking for a new recipe. This is one that I found online but adapted it to my use. I was intrigued by the frosting which involved cooking milk and adding flour. It was quite a nice frosting which was not overly sweet. The cake was wonderfully moist and you can clearly taste the banana and the walnuts. The chocolate chips added a delicious chocolate hit and the frosting brought it all together. 

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This recipe used up rapidly ripening bananas and some leftover yoghurt. 

 adding walnuts and chocolate chips 

 cooking the frosting 

 decorate with some grated chocolate 

Original recipe can be found here 

For the cake

215g flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

113g butter

180g castersugar

120g brown sugar

2 eggs

3 bananas

150mls yoghurt

200g chocolate chips

130g chopped walnuts

For the frosting

250mls milk

5 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

226gbutter

200g caster sugar

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugars for a few minutes.
• Add the eggs and mix well.
• Add in the mashed bananas.
• Alternate adding the flour+bicarbonate of soda and yoghurt until everything is incorporated.
• Add in the walnuts and chocolate chips.
• Divide the batter into 2 sandwich tins and bake for approximately 25-20 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• To make the frosting, whisk the flour into the milk over a medium heat until the mixture thickens.
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
• Cream the butter and sugar and add the vanilla extract.
• Add the cooled milk/flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat on high in an electric mixer until smooth. 

Mini Pork Pies with Quails Eggs

Last month I mentioned that I tried hot water crust pastry for the first time. Quite a few of you have been wondering what I made. Well I decided to be brave and had a go at Paul Hollywood's small pork pies with quails eggs! If you've watched the Great British Bake Off, you will know that it was one of the technical challenges and has been on my 'to bake' list for a while. I have to admit I was a little nervous and kept reading the recipe to make sure I'd not missed anything. I can see why it's a technical challenge - it's not as simple as it looks! I followed his recipe exactly but found I had too much filling so I made another batch of the hot water crust pastry and baked 12 mini pork pies. You can of course make half the filling for 6 pork pies.

So what did I learn from this experience? I can make hot water crust pastry - yay! It was really simple and I followed the recipe exactly. However, as mentioned for this recipe I had to make 2 lots of pastry for the amount of filling stated. I might have to get a larger muffin tin or just halve the amount of filling. The part that I struggled with was sealing the lid of the pastry - I ended up using the top of a teaspoon to push it into the pie and to create a seal. You do  have to work quickly with the hot water crust pastry as it dries out and hardens the longer you leave it, making it more difficult to mould. I'm glad I made the batches of pastry one at a time instead of just doubling up the amounts. The other slight stumbling block was that the recipe said to make a hole in the centre of each pie - my pies were really full and there wasn't much space at all. The centre was where the quails egg was so the top of the egg got a little brown. In addiction, I could only get a small amount of gelatine mixture in but it worked and you can see it in the pie after it's been chilled.

All in all it was a great learning experience and I am really pleased with the final result. J was most impressed and we still have a few left in the freezer for a rainy day. We had these pork pies with a salad on a weekend and it was perfect. I am definitely making these again particularly in the summer for picnics or packed lunches.

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month.

AlphaBakes hosted by me this month and co hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes. The letter this month is Q for Quails eggs!

The pastry challenge hosted by Jen from Jen's Food and Lisa from United Cakedom. The theme this month is picnics and thes mini pork pies are easily transportable plus you can bake them in advance.

Simply Eggcellent hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. The theme this month is savoury.

Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kat from The Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Eurovision. These pork pies are very British and they are mini versions.

Tea Time Treats hosted by Jane from The Hedgecombers and Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Sandwiches, Wraps and Rolls. These are a sneaky entry but they definitely fit the savoury theme!

Biscuit Barrel challenge guest hosted by Alexandra from The Lass in the Apron on behalf of Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than ...  The theme this month is Party and these are definitely great for parties.

Bake of the week hosted by Helen from Casa Costello.

Recipe of the week hosted by Emily from A Mummy Too.

Cook Blog Share hosted by Lucy from Supergolden Bakes.

 bring water and salt to a boil then add the lard 

 rub butter in to the flour 

 the dough comes together nicely 

 

 adding the filling - you can see that it was a bit of a squeeze for my filling 

 you can see the quails egg poking out through the hole in the centre and there's not much of a gap for the gelatine mixture 

 baked and chilled overnight in the fridge 

 ta dah! 

 served with fresh green salad 

Recipe from BBC Food 

Degustabox review March 2015

This post is well overdue but better late than never right? It's time for the what's in my degustabox post particularly as I've just received the box for April. I'm usually about a month behind with the reviews as the boxes get sent at the end of each month but I hope it's handy to show you the variety you can get in the box and decide if you want to order one for yourself or a family member/friend to try out. Degustabox is a no obligation monthly subscription which costs £12.99 including delivery. You get 9 to 14 surprise products and it's usually a good mixed selection of goodies. I have a special discount code for all my readers if you are interested in signing up a box for yourself or for a family memeber/friend. You get a £3.00 discount when registering by using this code ZH74B which makes it just under a tenner for a goodie box including delivery.

I've been getting these boxes for a few months now and I'll be honest and say that I was not particularly impressed at first but it's slowly growing on me and I look forward to receiving a box each month. I love the surprise element and there is usually at least a few things that I really like in the box. The boxes have been getting better in my opinion ie more suited to my tastes and this March box is no exception. In fact I like everything in this box which is unusual as there is usually one or two items thaat I'm not too keen in.

 Crabbie's Alcoholic Fruits which have been featured here before. They are fruity and refreshing and I particularly enjoyed this raspberry & rhubarb one. 

 I also received a black cherry flavour.

 Jordan's lighter granola - another product that has been featured in a previous degustabox. This is the lighter version with 30% less fat. Great for breakfasts and for baking flapjacks at home. 

 Juiceburst - this is the skinny burst at 99 calories per bottle. The flavour was Mango & Lime which was delicious.

 I also enjoyed the regular Juiceburst which is sweeter but still fruity and refreshing. 

 BBQUE - original Bavarian barbeque sauces which comes in 4 flavours -grill & beechwood, the original, honey & mustard, chili & horseradish. I've not tried it out yet as I'm saving it for a bbq we are having later in the month but it sure looks good! 

 Kents Kitchen Posh noodles - great for an on the go lunch or snack. They were quite tasty and low in calories too! 

 Brioche Pasquier Baked Bread Bites in bacon flavour. These were tasty little bites made from real French bread and each bag is under 90 calories. I had one as a snack and another in my soup which was absolutely delicious! 

 Lindt Assorted Mini Eggs - Lindt chocolates are my favourite chocolates so I was particularly pleased to see not one but two bags of these chocolate eggs. They come in assorted flavours and were the first items to go from this box! 

 Natvia sweetener which is a naturally sourced alternative to artificial sweeteners and sugar. It is derived from stevia and has zero calories per serve. I've tried it in coffee and aim to give it a go with baking too.

 Bassetts Jelly Babies Berry Mix - strawberry, blackcurrant and raspberry. 

 Maynards sour patch kids - sour and sweet all at once! 

Disclaimer: I was sent a Degustabox for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own. This is not a sponsored post.

Football Pinata Birthday Cake

I was asked to bake a football cake for a colleague's son birthday. Last year the birthday boy wanted a trash pack cake which was a challenge but turned out better than expected! I was a little worried that he would ask for something complicated but fortunately he wanted a football cake. His favourite team is Manchester United so I used red for the football. I made a football cake last year which was a little disastrous so I was determined to succeed this year. I also upped the stakes by making it a pinata cake by filling it with lots of M&M's so that there would be a surprise when you cut into the cake. I learnt my lesson from last year and baked the cake 2 days in advance. This allowed plenty of time for the cake to cool before decorating and I managed a whole round sphere with no collapsing cake in sight! I baked 2 hemispheres using my Lakeland hemisphere tin and sliced each in half. I cut a circle out of the top half of each hemisphere and stacked the whole cake with icing. The gap left by the cut out circle made a cavity for the M&M's to go in. I covered the whole cake with a crumb coat icing then a further layer of icing before covering it with white fondant. I couldn't find my hexagon cutter so I had to make my own by cutting out a piece of cardboard in the shape of a hexagon and used that as my guide. I can't draw and it took me ages to get something that resembles a hexagon!

The cake is chocolate mint as requested by the birthday boy and the icing is mint buttercream icing. I piped some 'grass' at the bottom of the cake board and cut out the number 8 to represent his age. The birthday boy was really pleased with the cake. He had a birthday party and the kids were impressed with the M&M's inside the cake when the cake was cut. I asked for a photo which you can see below.

 I baked 2 hemispheres and I used a cookie cutter to balance the tin

 There was some batter left over so I made 2 mini football cakes using a mini football shape mould. 

 Filling the middle with M&M's 

 Chocolate mint icing between each layer 

 My homemade hexagon cutter 

 mini footballs

 finished cake 

 The inside of the cake 

I used Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake and doubled her recipe. I added in 1 tablespoon of peppermint extract for the mint flavour.
The peppermint icing is made of 250g butter, 500g icing flour and 1/2 tablespoon peppermint extract plus a little green food colouring.
For the decorations - 2 packs of white fondant icing, 1 pack of red fondant icing, 2 bags of M&M's. 

AlphaBakes May 2015

Welcome to May's AlphaBakes. We had lots of lovely 'B' entries for April's challenge and you can see the round up on Caroline's blog. We used a linky last month and it seems to work well so we will be continuing it for now. I am currently on holiday in America so I hope I've set up the linky correctly. If not, I will try and fix it as soon as possible when I am back. Please email alphabakes@gmail.com if the linky is not working. So what letter are we using this month? Well the random letter generator came up with .... Q. I look forward to seeing your Q creations and if you need further inspiration then check out the previous Q round up.

Quick reminder of the rules....

1. Post your RECIPE on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker andCaroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will include in the round-up at the end of the month.

2. You can use your own RECIPE or someone else's RECIPE. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture! Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!) You can also republish old posts/RECIPES but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules.

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post.

4. Entry is via the linky tool below. Alternatively, you can email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include:

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog) 
• Your blog post URL 
• RECIPE title 
• Photo of RECIPE (to be included in the round up) 

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see. 

9. Have fun! :)